Various types of printers have been developed for printing data contained in or treated by a computer. The printers apply characters to paper or other types of data recording carriers in response to signals from the computer. The printers include systems for guiding the paper and controlling the motion of the print head across the sheet. The print systems are frequently distinguished as mechanical printers and electrostatic or xerographic printers.
In the case of mechanical printers, principally of the drum type, flying type, line by line type, etcetera, a disadvantage is that the printing system drive device is relatively heavy and therefore has considerable inertia. The relatively high inertia adversely affects the accuracy of the printing head positioning, necessitating a very efficient and considerable servo-control for the position and speed of a head for the printer. These factors pose problems notably in the case of so-called high speed printers where the printing speed is very fast. This is particularly the case with so-called "dot" printers in which each character or symbol is formed by successive and/or simultaneous hits or strikes of sets of dots, which together represent a character.
The present invention, therefore, has as its object the development of a high speed printer, particularly of the dot type, in which a guide device for the print head is very much lighter than devices of known type and has a relatively low inertia, while permitting a considerable reduction in the mechanical system and offering greater ease of operation.